“Steps down,” Ser Beornric said. “Looks as though it goes down a level. Proceed or come back?”

  “Proceed,” Aefric said.

  Ser Beornric descended the stairs. Ser Yrsa moved to the top of the stairs.

  “Doors ahead,” Ser Beornric called up, stepping just into the hall. “Facing each other. Which do you want first?”

  “Let’s see where the hall goes,” Aefric said. “I have a hunch.”

  Ser Yrsa took her turn down the stairs, followed by Aefric. Even down here they were using that white stone for everything. Must be a big local quarry.

  The doors Ser Beornric mentioned were all at the tops of small sets of stairs, as Aefric expected. He’d even be willing to bet he knew what kinds of rooms were on the other sides of those doors.

  Eight sets of facing doors total, down the hall, each with its own set of stairs.

  The end of the hall ascended another flight of stairs to a ninth door. On the landing beside the door, an ascending spiral staircase.

  The door had no handle.

  “Good,” Aefric said, nodding. “I thought that was where this would lead.”

  “The escape route,” Ser Yrsa said. “They could flee from behind the thrones, or any of eight … what … offices?”

  “Might be the family chambers are all along this corridor,” Ser Beornric said. “Builder seems to have been paranoid enough to have put them in the center of the first floor. Probably fake chambers on a higher floor.”

  “Maybe,” Ser Yrsa said. “Though those spiral stairs have to go somewhere important.”

  “True,” Aefric said. “Either way, one thing bothers me about this.”

  “They’ve got a hill,” Ser Beornric said. “So why have their escape route take them only out of the castle? Why not dig a route down to the harbor or something?”

  “Exactly,” Aefric said.

  “Not the harbor,” Ser Yrsa said, contemplatively. “The river. It’s closer by several hundred yards. And the family could have a holding along the riverbank without drawing attention. Could look like a warehouse or office or even an inn. Some part of the family business. Maybe even do some trade. But it’s actually there to guard the exit of the passage, and keep a boat ready if they need it.”

  “Which begs the question,” Aefric said. “What’s the deal with this door?”

  “They’re a martial family,” Ser Yrsa said. “You saw those tapestries. The design of the castle and grounds. Could be this door isn’t for escape, but for assault. A sally port, basically, in case anyone breached the outer walls.”

  “Good thought,” Aefric said. “But we won’t know until we check out the other rooms here.”

  “Before we do,” Ser Beornric said. “We should investigate that spiral staircase.”

  “I’d rather stick to the first floor for now,” Aefric said.

  “I don’t mean going up the stairs,” Ser Beornric said. “I mean that landing. After all, this door doesn’t lead down to the river.”

  “So maybe there are more stairs, hidden,” Aefric said. “Good thought. Maybe we’ll make an adventurer of you yet.”

  The three of them moved onto the stone of the landing by the spiral staircase.

  Sers Yrsa and Beornric tapped on stones with the butts of their weapons. Aefric did as well, here and there, with the Brightstaff. But he also checked for magic, and finally dismissed the Brightstaff’s light so he could look through its diamond, hunting for traps.

  No traps, so Aefric shifted mental gears and used a similar technique to scan for hidden doors.

  Well, not for hidden doors per se. Specifying that would have added a layer of complexity to the spell without adding any benefit.

  Properly speaking, Aefric’s spell detected doors in general. Not windows. Only openings designed to be used as entrances and exits.

  It was a question of intention in design. Even a hidden or concealed door was still designed with the intention of admitting people through it. Even if it only admitted those who knew how to find it, or knew the password, or who passed any other restriction.

  A door was a door was a door.

  And there was no door on that landing.

  “Sorry,” Aefric said, interrupting the tapping of his knight-advisers. “No door here.”

  “You’re certain?” Ser Yrsa asked.

  “I know a spell that will find almost any door. Concealed, hidden, or otherwise.”

  “Why are you only just using it now?” Ser Beornric asked.

  “It’s bad to get into the habit of relying on it,” Aefric said, shrugging. “While I’m using that spell, I can miss all kinds of other things. Traps, enemy magic and other dangers. Might not even notice someone coming up behind me.”

  “Could still be worth using here in the castle,” Ser Yrsa said. “Low risk factor, especially with us here.”

  “True,” Aefric said. “But only in places we think likely to have a hidden door. Otherwise, I want all my senses available.”

  “Fair enough,” Ser Beornric said.

  “And this landing was worth checking,” Ser Yrsa said to Ser Beornric, then turned to Aefric. “Since we’re at this end, shall we take the other doors in reverse order?”

  “Makes sense,” Aefric said.

  The approached the last set of facing doors. Ser Beornric went up the stairs to his right.

  “Locked,” he said. “Is it safe?”

  Aefric checked. “No traps.”

  Ser Beornric pulled out the ring of keys and began testing.

  He tried each key in succession, going through the whole of the ring.

  None of them turned the lock.

  Ser Beornric sighed impatiently. “May I break it down, your grace?”

  “Not necessary,” Aefric said, and with a gesture cast a simple spell that undid basic locks and bindings.

  He nodded at Ser Beornric.

  Ser Beornric tried the doorknob.

  “Still locked,” he announced a moment later. “Your grace.”

  Aefric frowned. Cast a more advanced and complex version. One that would have undone dozens of locks and bindings in an instant, no matter how complex or interrelated.

  Aefric had never seen any lock or binding meet that spell without surrendering.

  In fact, it was a derivation of this spell that Aefric had once used to rapidly undress Zoleen without harming her gown. When they were on better terms.

  “Still locked,” Ser Beornric said, frowning now, and wonder in his voice.

  Aefric’s turn to frown. There was no magic to that lock, or anything about that door…

  Aefric shook his head. No. It couldn’t be.

  He cast his spell to detect doors, then sighed.

  “It’s a fake,” he said. “It’s not a real door at all.”

  He swept his spell-aided gaze through the Brightstaff’s yellow diamond and down the hallway, then shook his head in disbelief.

  “In fact, none of the other doors in this hallway are real.”

  Aefric and his two knight-advisers took a little more time going slowly down that strange hall filled with fake doors.

  And they were all fake doors. Aefric double-checked them each with his door-detecting spell. And as he did, either Ser Beornric or Ser Yrsa tried the handle, and put a shoulder into the door. Just in case.

  But they all seemed to be fakes. Their best guess was that the walls had been chiseled out just enough to frame out the appearance of a door, but that behind those “doors” was nothing but solid stone.

  Aefric had seen that kind of thing only once or twice, back when he was young, and still traveling with Karbin’s group, the Last Sons.

  Given what Aefric had seen back then, there might not even be rooms on the other sides of these fake doors.

  When they reached the foot of the first stairs they’d come down, the ones behind the thrones in the great hall, they looked back down the hallway.

  “So we have an apparent escape route, that only leads out of the keep itself, not off of the grounds.” Ser Beornric said. “Along the way there are fake doors, but a real set of spiral stairs.”

  “Unless the stairs don’t go anywhere,” Ser Yrsa said. “We didn’t check.”

  “All right,” Aefric said. “So what’s the point of this design? What’s their goal?”

  “I have an idea,” Ser Yrsa said, “but first I’d need to know if those spiral stairs go where I think they do.”

  “All right,” Aefric said, “let’s check.”

  As they made their way back down the hall — still moving cautiously, just in case — Aefric considered lighting up the Brightstaff again.

  Decided against it. He had enough light to see by, from the spells he’d put on Ser Beornric’s sword and one of Ser Yrsa’s maces.

  He did smile, though, that they had him at the back of the marching order. In his adventuring days, he would have been in the middle, with a warrior of some stripe at the front and another at the back.

  After all, attacks could come from anywhere.

  But then, the only people likely to approach Aefric’s back right now were his own knights.

  He kept checking, though, out of long-established habit.

  They reached the far end of the hall, ascended the stairs to the handle-less door that led to the gardens. Just to their right was the spiral staircase, going up.

  Ser Yrsa led the way this time, staying five stairs ahead of Ser Beornric, who insisted on being five stairs ahead of Aefric.

  The stairs were wide enough for two, and broad enough to go up and down quickly.

  “Door here,” Ser Yrsa said from the next landing. “Real door.”

  Before Aefric had gone another step, Ser Yrsa was back at the top stair and coming down.

  “Exactly what I thought,” she said, prompting Aefric and Ser Beornric to head back down. “Guard station.”

  Once all three of them were back down in that hallway, Aefric asked, “So what does that mean?”

  “The hallway’s a trap,” Ser Yrsa said. “Someone comes after the lord and lady of the castle, they flee from their thrones through the door behind the tapestry. Straight shot to the back of the castle, where guards will be waiting to protect them.”

  “Meanwhile,” Ser Beornric said, coming around to the idea, “the invaders are delayed by fake doors, and pinned in on both sides by guards. And even if they reach the back door, they won’t know the password to open it. Smart.”

  Aefric agreed … and he didn’t. Most of that sounded right. And yet…

  “One thing,” he said. “That exit still bugs me. There’s no reason to assume that there’d be safety behind the castle, just because invaders come through the front. There might be fighting on all sides.”

  “If the invaders have enough soldiers, maybe,” Ser Yrsa said, while the three of them started back down the hallway. “But most of the time, the attackers will pour in through one entrance. They manage get in through the front, they’ll all come in that way.”

  “Efficiency and coherency matter during a battle,” Ser Beornric said. “By going straight out the back, a warlike lord and lady would be able to rally any remaining troops outside the castle itself. And the gardens would make for an easy rallying point.”

  “I suppose,” Aefric said, still frowning. “But you know, we never checked the first landing.”

  “We checked all the fake doors,” Ser Yrsa said. “And their landings.”

  “No,” Aefric said, trotting now and forcing the other two to keep up. “The landing just behind the concealed door. We never checked it. And I bet…”

  He quick-stepped up the stairs to that first landing, behind the concealed door, which still stood open.

  Eager to see if he was right, Aefric didn’t take any time with tapping. Went straight to his door-detecting spell.

  And there he saw it, glowing green through the yellow diamond atop the Brightstaff.

  A trap door, hidden among the stonework, just beside the doorway.

  “Here,” Aefric said, feeling around for the catch he could see but not quite see. The spell found doors, after all, but not specifically handles or catches.

  There. A spot under his fingers gave with a click, and the trapdoor sprang open.

  A strong, silk rope hung down from its center.

  Beneath it, a small room lit brightly by magic.

  A ladder down the wall, presumably for coming back up. Down at the bottom, a large, comfortable-looking couch. Several large cabinets along the walls, as well as a pair of well-stocked bookshelves.

  A painting of a schooner sailing the Indecisive River hung on the wall above the couch. Three casks stacked in a corner, with the top one on its side, a tap in place.

  “Clever,” Ser Yrsa said, “Grab the rope and jump inside, the trap door closes behind you. Then you relax in safety while your soldiers repel the invaders.”

  “Only admits one that way though,” Ser Beornric said, frowning.

  “Unless the first one down takes the ladder and the second the rope,” Ser Yrsa said. “There’s room enough down there for two, if they’re friendly.”

  “You know we have to check it, right?” Aefric asked.

  “I’ll take the ladder,” Ser Yrsa said, hanging her mace from her belt.

  “As will I,” Ser Beornric said.

  “I’ll use magic,” Aefric said, “if it’s all the same to you.”

  “I’ll come down last then,” Ser Beornric said, “and test the rope. Best to be sure it holds, and I’m heavier than both of you.”

  Ser Yrsa climbed down. Aefric floated gently down by magic. And Ser Beornric hooted as he jumped in, clinging to the rope with both hands.

  The trapdoor closed with impressive silence.

  “Huh,” Ser Beornric said. “I expected a boom. I must admit, I’m a little disappointed.”

  “Not magically silenced,” Aefric confirmed.

  “Impressive engineering then,” Ser Yrsa said. “Makes sense though. No good hiding down here if everyone hears the door slam.”

  A thorough search of the room turned up spare clothes and supplies of very high quality, as well as a variety of easily preserved foods.

  Weapons and armor, too. Two sets of fine, gold-washed chainmail. Sword belts with short swords. A pair of fine bows, with sixty arrows in quivers.

  “So they’d be ready if the invaders found the trap door,” Ser Beornric said with an appraising nod.

  The books were all works of poetry and fiction, mostly about love or war or both.

  A quick check of the top cask revealed a thick, dark beer that was pretty tasty.

  No other magic down here than the perpetual light. No hidden exits or other caches.

  The phrase safe room came to mind, but Aefric didn’t bother speaking it aloud. He knew the term from Keifer’s vocabulary, but hadn’t ever heard it spoken here in Qorunn.

  “All right,” Ser Yrsa said. “I trust it now makes sense, your grace?”

  “Yes,” Aefric said. “The lords of the keep lead invaders behind the tapestry and into the hallway. They escape to safety down here, while up above the hallway serves as a killing zone, with the castle soldiers hitting the trapped invaders from both sides.”

  “Clever,” Ser Beornric said. “And vicious.”

  “All right,” Aefric said with a smile. “Let’s see what the others have found.”

  Aefric, and Sers Yrsa and Beornric came out from behind the tapestry to find Ser Deirdre, leaning against the back of both thrones, her arms stretched wide and her maroon leather boots crossed at the ankle.

  The Knights of the Lake were gathered around behind her, with Sers Arras and Micham shooting her disapproving looks. As though even leaning against the backs of what were now Aefric’s thrones was improper.

  Ser Yrsa cocked a split eyebrow at Ser Deirdre and cleared her throat.

  Huh. So that was considered a big deal. Aefric wouldn’t have thought so. This was hardly the ducal seat, after all, and she wasn’t exactly sitting on the throne.

  But from the looks all the other knights were giving her now, inappropriate might’ve been an understatement.

  Ser Deirdre straightened up, unabashed, and gave Aefric a broad smile.

  “Please forgive the impertinence, your grace,” she said without the slightest hint of sincerity in any of her words except his honorific. “But I wished to be certain your grace’s attention first came here.”

  “What have you found, Ser Deirdre?” Aefric asked.

  “Here,” she said, crouching down and pointing.

  The hind feet of the thrones were locked into place, in the stonework beneath.

  “So they didn’t move the thrones,” Ser Leppina said. “From what I’ve seen, the previous owners seemed arrogant enough to have their thrones in place even while hosting a formal ball.”

  “A fair conclusion,” Ser Deirdre said, one index finger raised, “but the wrong one. Watch.”

  She ran her hand over the stonework of the floor between the hind feet of the right-hand chair. The one that had once held spells intended to detect lies.

  “Ah,” she said. “I knew the catch would be here somewhere.”

  She pressed a spot on the floor.

  The throne tipped forward until its arms hit the stone of the dais. The bottom of the trap door had a handle, not a rope this time. And underneath it was not a short drop of ten feet or so into a lit room, but a sliding shaft that led off into darkness.

  Small whistles and mutters of appreciation from the knights.

  “Very good work, Ser Deirdre,” Aefric said, and she preened a bit at the praise.

  “Now that,” Ser Yrsa said, pointing to the shaft with her mace, “will lead to an escape tunnel.”

  “I believe you’re right,” Aefric said. “And it’s probably not the only one.”

  “It’s not,” Ser Temat said. “Vria and I found a shaft like that in an office, down the right side of the keep.”

  “Lots of interesting stuff in that office,” Ser Vria said. “Looks to have kept all the castle’s accounts and records. And there’s a concea— I mean a secret door in the back wall.”

  “We couldn’t open it though,” Ser Temat said, sounding disappointed.